Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Requiring immediate action; pressing: synonym: urgent.
  • adjective Having or making urgent demands; demanding.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Urgently requiring: exacting.
  • noun An urgent occasion; an occasion that calls for immediate aid or action; an exigency.
  • noun End; extremity.
  • noun In English law, formerly, a writ preliminary to outlawry, which lay where the defendant could not be found, or after a return of non est inventus on former writs.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Exacting or requiring immediate aid or action; pressing; critical.
  • noun obsolete Exigency; pressing necessity; decisive moment.
  • noun (o. Eng. Law) The name of a writ in proceedings before outlawry.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Urgent; needing immediate action.
  • adjective Demanding; needing great effort.
  • noun archaic Extremity; end; limit; pressing urgency
  • noun obsolete, UK, law The name of a writ in proceedings before outlawry.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective requiring precise accuracy
  • adjective demanding attention

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin exigēns, exigent-, present participle of exigere, to demand; see exact.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin exigēns, present active participle of exigō ("demand, require").

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Examples

  • For his own system he claims the merit of establishing an invariable mode of causality, namely, that in every case by the sacrament validly received there is conferred a "title exigent of grace".

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 13: Revelation-Stock 1840-1916 1913

  • A couple things, have you ever heard of the word exigent?

    SeekingAlpha.com: Home Page 2008

  • Sacraments are practical signs of an intentional order: they manifest God's intention to give spiritual benefits; this manifestation of the Divine intention is a title exigent of grace (op. cit., 59 sq., 123 sq.

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 13: Revelation-Stock 1840-1916 1913

  • (d) All admit that the sacraments are, in some sense, the instrumental causes either of grace itself or of something else which will be a "title exigent of grace" (infra e).

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 13: Revelation-Stock 1840-1916 1913

  • BELL: Now, under the law, police may enter a home without knocking if certain so-called exigent circumstances exist.

    CNN Transcript Aug 7, 2008 2008

  • The third area addressed by the inspector general relates to what is called exigent (ph) letters.

    CNN Transcript Mar 9, 2007 2007

  • Well, that is very similar to the situation of the cop who hears screams from a house and doesn’t have time to go get a warrant †it’s called exigent circumstances and it can authorize action without a warrant in those kind of pressing circumstances.

    Firedoglake » Out of Control 2006

  • These so-called exigent letters, which were often used when no emergency actually existed, were an extralegal contrivance that violated ECPA, bureau policy, and guidelines issued by the attorney general.

    Reason Magazine 2010

  • The inspector general's previous reports concluded the FBI's use of the so-called exigent letters circumvented the requirements of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and violated the attorney general's guidelines and FBI policy.

    Breaking News - The Post Chronicle 2010

  • These so-called exigent letters, which were often used when no emergency actually existed, were an extralegal contrivance that violated ECPA, bureau policy, and guidelines issued by the attorney general.

    Jihad Monitor 2010

Comments

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  • "No news was good news for a short time yet, and I welcomed the immediate realities of triage and treatment as a refuge from imagination.

    Nothing else looked exigent. Men were still straggling in... If any of them needed me, she would call."

    —Diana Gabaldon, The Fiery Cross (NY: Bantam Dell, 2001), 905

    January 26, 2010